Masters Of War

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963

An Android developer recently discovered a clandestine application called Carrier IQ built into most smartphones that doesn't just track your location; it secretly records your keystrokes, and there's nothing you can do about it. Is it time to put on a tinfoil hat? That depends on how you feel about privacy.

The reason for this invasive Android app seems reasonable enough at face value. Even though it's on most Android, BlackBerry and Nokia devices, most users would never know that Carrier IQ is running in the background, and that's sort of the point. Described on the company's website as software to gain "unprecedented insight into their customers' mobile experience," Carrier IQ is ostensibly supposed to help mobile carriers and device manufacturers gather data in order to improve their products.

Tons of applications do this, and you're probably used to those boxes that pops up on your screen and ask if you want to help the company by sending your data back to them. If you're concerned about your privacy, you just tap no and go about your merry computing way. As security-conscious Android developer Trevor Eckhartrealized, however, Carrier IQ does not give you this option, and unless you were code-savvy and looking for it, you'd never know it was there. And based on how aggressive the company has been in trying to keep Eckhart quiet about his discovery, it seems like Carrier IQ doesn't want you to know it's there either.

The act was, by almost any standard, a laudable one, coming as it did in the middle of the worst recession in decades and given that Shin had been enjoying the kind of upper-middle-class life that, once tasted, can be difficult to give up. Born in South Korea, Shin moved to suburban Washington, D.C., with his parents when he was 9. He went to a magnet high school and got into the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where he studied finance and marketing. By 2008, he was comfortably ensconced in the New Jersey offices of McKinsey & Company, where recession-era cutbacks meant that all-expenses-paid Caribbean bacchanals had given way to comparatively ascetic (but still all expenses paid) ski trips. He had an apartment in Manhattan. He was comfortable. His parents were proud.

And yet somehow, this life, in all its dull glory, did not feel like his own. Shin was an entrepreneur at heart, having started two companies while still in college. The first, a website for students looking for housing, failed miserably. The second, an Internet advertising company called Invite Media, which he co-founded with several classmates during his senior year, was more promising. It won a business-plan competition in early 2007 and raised $1 million in venture capital the next year.

Shin's buddies would eventually sell Invite Media to Google for $81 million, but Shin had left the company long before that happened. His parents, who had come all the way from Korea precisely so their son could grow up to work at a place like McKinsey, were not about to see Daniel throw the opportunity away for a money-losing start-up no one had ever heard of. "That was the only reason I was at McKinsey," says Shin. "It didn't feel like a career to me. I'd always wanted to start a business."

By late 2009, Shin was through with consulting, but he didn't have the guts to strike out on his own just yet. He applied for, and was offered, a job in the New York City office of Apax Partners, a European private equity firm. He accepted the offer on the condition that he could delay his start date until the following August, so he could complete the two-year stint he had promised McKinsey. It was a lie; he walked out on McKinsey in November. "It was my chance to get something off the ground without my parents telling me I couldn't do it," says Shin. "I had about six months."

Shin got to work. He and two college buddies holed up in a house with whiteboards, laptops, and an endless supply of McDonald's for a series of all-day brainstorming sessions. Their goal: to come up with a business that would grow fast and require no start-up capital. They started with 20 ideas and, over the course of two months, whittled them down to one: a Groupon-style coupon company that would offer deals on restaurants, events, and merchandise. Shin liked the business model because it had a built-in financing strategy: Cash came in several months before the company would have to pay it out, giving him a supply of free debt. He picked a name—Ticket Monster—collected several thousand e-mail addresses, and launched the site in May.

A month later, Apax called Shin to rescind its offer of employment. The firm had done a background check and discovered that Daniel Shin was not a second-year McKinsey associate but the CEO of a fast-growing company that was doing $1 million a month in revenue. By the end of the summer, Ticket Monster had doubled in size, growing to 60 employees. By the end of the year, the company had doubled in size again. READ MORE

BRICS countries have become increasingly wary of NATO interventions [GALLO/GETTY]

Few may have noticed when, last week, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland cryptically announcedthat Washington "would cease carrying out certain obligations under the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty with regard to Russia".

Translation: Washington will not inform Russia from now on about the redeployment of its global armada. The Pentagon's worldwide "repositioning" strategy is now supposed to be a secret.

Some essential background is in order. CFE part one was signed way back in 1990 - when the Warsaw Pact was still in effect, and NATO was supposed to defend the "free" West against what was depicted as a threatening Red Army.

CFE part one established a significant reduction of the number of tanks, hardcore artillery, fighter jets and helicopters and that both sides would be constantly talking about it.

CFE part two was signed in 1999, in the post-USSR world. Russia did move the bulk of its arsenal behind the Ural Mountains while NATO kept expanding right up to Russia's borders - blatantly betraying the promise made in person by George Bush Sr to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Enter Vladimir Putin in 2007, when he decided to suspend Russia's role in the CFE until the US and NATO ratified part two. Washington did absolutely nothing, and spent four years mulling what to do. Now, even "talking" is on hold.

Don't mess with Syria

Moscow, nevertheless, has already known for years where the Pentagon wants to tread: Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania.

Yet NATO's dream is something completely different: Already outlined at a Lisbon summit a year ago, it wants to turn the Mediterranean into a NATO lake.

EU diplomats in Brussels confirm, off the record, that NATO will discuss in a key meeting in early December how to establish a beachhead very close to Russia's southern border to turbo-charge the destabilisation of Syria.

"Russia's one and only naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean is in the (Syrian) port of Tartus."

For Russia, a Western intervention in Syria is an absolute no-no. Russia's one and only naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean is in the (Syrian) port of Tartus.

Not by accident, Russia has installed its S-300 air defence system - one of the best all-altitude surface-to-air missile systems in the world, comparable to the American Patriot - in Tartus. The update to the even more sophisticated S-400 system is imminent.

Moreover, at least 20 per cent of the Russian industrial-military complex would be in deep crisis if those assiduous Syrian clients were lost.

Essentially, NATO - not to mention Israel - would be suicidal to try to attack Syria by the sea. Russian intelligence is working with the hypothesis of an attack via Saudi Arabia.

Other countries, too, are very much aware of NATO's "Libya remix" strategy.

Take last week's meeting, in Moscow, of the deputy foreign ministers of the emerging BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

The BRICS couldn't be more explicit: Forget about foreign intervention in Syria, as in "any external interference in Syria's affairs, not in accordance with the UN Charter, should be excluded".

The BRICS also condemn the extra sanctions on Iran ("counterproductive") and any possibility of a strike. The only solution - for both Syria and Iran - is dialogue and negotiations. Forget about an Arab League vote leading to a new R2P ("responsibility to protect") resolution approved at the UN Security Council.

This is a geopolitical earthquake. Russian diplomacy has coordinated with the other BRICS members a major pounding on the table; we will fight new US interventions - "humanitarian" or otherwise - in the Middle East. Now it's Pentagon/NATO versus the BRICS.

Brazil, India and China are following as closely as Russia on how France - under the neo-Napoleonic Liberator of Libya Nicolas Sarkozy - and Turkey, both NATO members, are invested, no holds barred, into smuggling weapons and betting on a civil war in Syria, while at the same time thwarting any possibility of a dialogue between the Assad regime and the fragmented opposition.

Chokepoint alert

It's also no secret of the BRICS that the Pentagon "repositioning" strategy implies an undisguised attempt to force, in the long run, "denial of access" to Chinese shipping and an expanding Chinese blue-water navy.

The repositioning now on across Africa and Asia especially concerns chokepoints. No wonder three of the world's crucial chokepoints are matters of national security for China, in terms of its supply of oil.

The Strait of Hormuz is the key global oil chokepoint (roughly 16 million barrels a day, 17 per cent of all oil traded worldwide, more than 75 per cent exported to Asia).

The Strait of Malacca is the crucial link between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and the Pacific, the shortest sea route between the Persian Gulf and Asia, with a flow of around 14 million barrels a day.

And the Bab el-Mandab, between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, is the strategic link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, with a flow of 4 million barrels a day.

The Obama administration's national security adviser Thomas Donilon has been insistently arguing the US needs to "rebalance" its strategic emphasis - from the Middle East to Asia.

That goes a long way to explain Obama sending marines to Darwin, in Northern Australia, a move analysed in a previous Al Jazeera article. Darwin is very close to another chokepoint - Jolo/Sulu in in the southwest Philippines.

The first NATO secretary-general, Lord "Pug" Ismay, coined that famous mantra according to which the Atlanticist bloc should "keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down."

Now NATO's mantra seems to be "keep the Chinese out, the Americans in and the Russians down".

But what the Pentagon/NATO's moves - all part of the Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine - are actually doing is to bring Russia and China closer and closer - not only inside the BRICS, but especially in the expanded Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which is fast becoming not only an economic, but a military bloc as well.

Full Spectrum Dominance implies Washington encircling Asia with hundreds of military bases and now - untested - missile defence systems. Crucially, this also implies the threat of all threats: first-strike capability.

Beijing, at least for now, has not branded the expansion of Africom (US Africa Command) against its commercial interests, or the Marines positioned in Australia, as an act of war.

But Russia - as in the case of missile defence expanding on Eastern Europe and Turkey, the "no talking" regarding CFE, and NATO's designs on Syria - is becoming much more forceful.

Remember when President Obama solemnly announced in October that he would keep his 2008 campaign promise and bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq? Never mind!

In a joint press appearance in Baghdad on Tuesday, Vice President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki disclosed that the end of the eight-year U.S. military mission in Iraq, currently scheduled for December 31, will come with an asterisk. The fewer than 15,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq will indeed depart by then — only to have a smaller contingent of them welcomed back to Iraq later on, probably next year.

Pause on that for a moment. If Biden gets his way, then U.S. troops returning to Iraq next year won’t just be training their Iraqi counterparts, even if that’s how Maliki sells it to a skeptical Iraqi populace. They’ll continue to wage a war against Iraq’s lingering terrorists. (Maybe Iranian forces in Iraq, too.) It’ll be lower-key than before, but the U.S. will still be at war in Mesopotamia.

It turned out their decision was no. In October, the Iraqi parliament declined to grant U.S. troops legal immunity from prosecution after 2011, a key requirement by the U.S. for a residual force. Once they did, Obama conveniently forgot his months’ worth of efforts to extend the lifespan of U.S. troops in Iraq and billed the diplomatic failure as the steadfast fulfillment of a campaign promise. “Today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year,” he told the cameras on October 21.

Now McCain, Obama’s 2008 rival for the presidency, is getting what he wants — that is, if Maliki really can suddenly sell the residual force to Iraqis. If so, Obama will doubtlessly still portray that minimal residual “training, intelligence and counterterrorism” force as a mere detail while he’s “ended” the war. In truth, he’ll not only continue the war, but also the legacy of deceit that’s surrounded it from the start. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/iraq-war-flip-flop/#more-65141

WAKE THE EFF UP FOLKS. O is a war of choice president.

The MIC, and the Banksters own this guy. He will continue the perpetual war without borders until there is no more.

A 'debt meter,' ostensibly showing the current level of the German national debt, reads over EUR 2 trillion over the entrance to the Federation Of Tax Payers on November 21, 2011 in Berlin, Germany. According to the meter Germany's debt level is rising at a rate of EUR 1,556 per second. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

BOSTON — Europe's political gridlock is threatening the global economy. Despite a seemingly endless series of summits, the euro zone's leaders appear unable to solve their sovereign debt crisis.

Economists say a breakup of the currency union could throw the world back into the kind of crisis that reached its nadir in 2008 and 2009, destroying trillions of dollars in wealth and causing millions to lose their jobs.

So far the US has largely played an outsider's role, watching from the sidelines and reiterating the urgency of dealing with the mess. On Tuesday, for example, the US Federal Reserve's second-in-command Janet Yellen urged European leaders to take "forceful action," but offered no tangible assistance or specific policy prescriptions.

Now a respected Washington economic policy institution is saying that America's central bank should get involved directly. The Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) is calling on the Fed to become a lender of last resort for the heavily indebted nations. The goal of this intervention would be to lower the interest rates of the highly indebted countries including Spain, Italy and others.

In recent weeks, markets have demanded that Italy pay over 7 percent interest on its debt. That's a level at which other euro zone countries have required bailouts. But Italy is different. It's Europe's third largest economy, and it has more than $2.5 trillion debt. Engineering a bailout would be extremely difficult. READ MORE

But would would happen to the global economy if the unthinkable, in fact, happened?

What would happen, in other words, if German Chancellor Angela Merkel listened to many of her unhappy people, threw up her hands in defeat and ended Europe's gigantic economic, political and cultural experiment?

"If it happens in a chaotic manner and there are unplanned defaults and you have a collapse of the banking system, then the effect on the global economy would be huge," said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research in Washington, DC.

He argues the damage could be something on the order of what happened after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, an event that precipitated the Great Recession.

"If it’s a more controlled agreement then it wouldn’t have as much of an impact," Weisbrot adds.

TEHRAN, Iran — When Iran’s finance minister appeared in front of parliament earlier this month to defend himself in a $2.8 billion banking scandal that implicated several members of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration, analysts were certain that the president’s days were numbered.

The scandal appeared particularly egregious in light of the economic pressure placed on Iranians by international sanctions. And calls for justice quickly rang out.

But in a surprise decision, parliament voted to retain the minister, indicating that perhaps Ahmadinejad is on firmer political ground than many had thought.

The scandal, however, represented one of the most serious challenges to Ahmadinejad’s presidency and underscored a deepening rivalry in Iranian politics — one that could represent a lost opportunity for the United States and the West if Ahmadinejad loses.

Two Syrian Orthodox priests wait for the arrival of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Damascus on Nov. 12, 2011. A poster of President Bashar Assad can be seen in the background.

Many of Syria's 2.5 million Christians are supporting President Bashar Assad amidst ongoing protests in the country. They prefer a brutal dictator who guarantees the rights of religious minorities to the uncertain future that Assad's departure would bring. The president is exploiting their fears of Islamists for his own ends. READ MORE

On Monday, Iran's powerful Guardian Council endorsed the Majlis' resolution adopted the previous day to downgrade the country's ties with Britain. The speed with which the process gathered momentum conveys the message that it carries the stamp of a decision at the highest levels of the Iranian leadership.

That and the overwhelming mood of support for the move within the Majlis also indicate that the locus of power in Iran is shifting to a hard line.

The move includes expelling the British ambassador in Tehran and downgrading the representation to the level of charge d'affaires. By Tuesday afternoon, dozens of Iranian protesters forced their way into the British compound in Tehran, tearing down the Union Flag and throwing documents from windows. A signpost

has been put up in Tehran that can be ignored only at some peril.

The protesters raised three main slogans: "Down with Britain", "Down with America", and "Down with Israel". They carried photographs of Iranian scientist Majid Shahriari and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Major-General Qassem Soleimani. Tuesday was also the first anniversary of Shahriari's murder, which was believed to have been carried out by Israel's Mossad with the support of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

Asymmetrical response
But the tipping point must be London's steps toward removing the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MKO) from the list of terrorist organizations. The MKO has been responsible for some of the most devastating terrorist attacks in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran holds the MKO responsible for more than 17,000 killings over the years. The most "celebrated" were of course those of Ayatollah Muhammad Behesti (who was next only to Imam Ruhollah Khomeini in the pantheon of the revolutionary leadership) in June 1980 and of the popularly elected Iranian president Muhammad Rajayi in August of the same year. The second terrorist strike came close to eliminating the entire revolutionary leadership under Khomeini. READ MORE

The Obama administration, in yet another display of the use of Orwellian language, has embarked on a military doctrine called "Mass Atrocity Prevention" (MAP), the Pentagon operational plan to implement the White House's "R2P" or "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine. Essentially, the Pentagon doctrine is crafted to militarily support the intervention of regional and worldwide international forces operating under the umbrella of NATO, UN, the African Union, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League, and other organizations in the name of “humanitarian” intervention to prevent widespread massacres. The doctrine’s first major test case was in Libya, where NATO forces, in support of Western- and Saudi/Gulf potentate-backed rebel forces, ousted the 42 year-old regime of Muammar Qaddafi.

And in yet another display of oxymoronic Orwellian “Newspeak,” the main Defense Department activity for developing “Mass Atrocity Response Operations” or “MARO” is the Army’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. READ MORE

The scheduling of diplomatic calendar is always a tricky thing and that is why experienced professionals attend to it. Countries can convey strong, silent messages across vast ocean spaces through a subtle shift of date in the scheduling of a delicate diplomatic dalliance – or by simply ‘non-scheduling’ an event. India has been coping with a fair crop of scheduling problems lately.

For the past one year since his visit to India in November, United States President Barack Obama proved elusive, pleading scheduling problems to meet the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on at least two occasions.

Obama apparently conveyed an unmistakable message of American displeasure or disappointment over Indian policies that weren’t living up to his expectations. Amongst his dashed hopes the foremost could have been that the US companies weren’t getting the multi-billion dollar business the book keepers in Washington had toted up – some say the business could be as much as 100 billion dollars – by way of selling nuclear reactors to India under the umbrella of the US-India nuclear deal of 2008.

During the negotiations over the nuclear deal India had promised that at least 10000 MW of nuclear power production in the country would be done through reactors imported from the US. Three years have passed but the anticipated business hasn’t yielded yet. The US president was upset about the jobs ‘lost’ in the American economy because they couldn’t be created.

India has begun unilaterally deriving advantages out of the nuclear deal (which removed restrictions on export of uranium to India amongst other things) and signed nuclear cooperation agreements with several countries, ending its ‘nuclear isolation’. Russia and France forged ahead in selling reactors to India, while the US companies waited in the wings because of an unhelpful nuclear liability law that India enacted, which would make suppliers liable for damage if a nuclear accident happens in future. READ MORE

Introduction – Why a People’s Guide?

For a number of years as part of the President's annual budget request the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) included “A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget." OMB released the last Citizen's Guide in February, 2001 to accompany the Fiscal Year 2002 budget request. According to that last version, "we know you care a lot about how the Government spends your money. That’s why A Citizen’s Guide to the Federal Budget was created...We hope to make the budget more accessible and understandable."

Since 2001 taxpayers have had to fend for themselves in efforts to make the budget more accessible and understandable. Yet we still care a lot about how the government spends our money, perhaps now more than ever. National Priorities Project (NPP) believes that all people affected by federal spending priorities should have the ability and opportunity to shape our nation's budget. To that end, NPP strives to make complex federal budget information transparent and accessible so people can prioritize and influence how their tax dollars are spent.

So, how much do you know about the federal budget? If your answer is “not much,” you’re not alone. Virtually no one knows everything about how the government will spend the $3.7 trillion dollars that the Obama Administration has proposed spending in FY2012, or even how our elected officials in Washington will decide who will get how much as they slice up the federal budget pie.

That's why at NPP the question is not "why a guide to the federal budget?" but "why not?”

NPP's “A People's Guide to The Federal Budget” provides an overview of the various parts of the federal budget and the budget process. It discusses in greater detail how the government raises revenues and spends money. And it highlights critical issues such as the deficit and debt.

Want to understand why the occupiers are occupying? Hint: The big red chunk is military spending. A People's Guide to the proposed 2012 federal budget from the National Priorities Project explains how $1.34 trillion in discretionary funds - that's your money - will be spent. Information is power, or at least the start of it.

Visitor Map

Who-When, Where,How ? ? ? ?

Fair Use Disclaimer, US Copyright Law

This blog may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. All posts are clearly attributed by name and active link to the original author and website. I am making such material available on a non-profit basis for educational, research and discussion purposes in my efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in US Copyright Law, Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. Consistent with this notice you are welcome to make 'fair use' of anything you find on this web site. However, if you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.More information at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.